Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BDutch]

This is a very hard message to get accross to people and even more difficult on a largely American forum where many have the expecation that we can fix things and are relatively new to chicken keeping. I mean no disrespect, but after a few years of struggling to keep a sick chicken alive, only to have it die a few weeks after you think you've dealt with the problem your attitude is likely to change.
External injuries I found are different, possibly because they are often easier to identfy and how to treat them is fairly well understood. I've had some very hostile reactions when I've suggested, particularly with sick chicks, that putting the chick out of it's misery as quickly as possible would be my approach.

I agree on the usefulness of vets if a chicken is in trouble in many cases too.

Before joining BYC actively I was on a Dutch chicken forum. I learnt a lot from experts on that forum about keeping/ dealing with chickens. But I didn't agree on spending much money on vets/antibiotics for chickens with a respiratory or an internal problem.

It seemed the vets often subscribed antibiotics without knowing the cause of the health problem. Sometimes the chickens healed, sometimes they didn’t ’. And the ones that healed after being in a bad state often died a month later. I believe antibiotics kill the good bacteria too, and make the chickens vulnarable for all kind of diseases after a while.

My story. The year after I started with chickens I had sneezing chicks. Most people on this forum told me to go to a vet for antibiotics. One person said, don’t if you want a strong flock. I followed the last advice. All chicks survived. After a few weeks they got better. One chick needed 6 weeks to recover. these chicks never got sick. And I still have 2 of them today. 7 years old.

Last year these oldies (black Dutch ) hatched a few eggs (bantam RIR) for maintenance.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Don't we all!

YES!!!!

 

[Ladies-Eight]

This is not related to chickens at all, and I still don't have my new chickens yet to pay tax! I am working on it, though. Got the shade house area and the old coop cleared out ready to build the new one. Will be looking for three bantam pullets this summer.

I am a licensed captain (and female, I might add), but since boats are very expensive and I am poor, I mostly act as first mate on wealthier friends' boats. I have done the Transpac race multiple times (So Cal to Hawaii), spent 2 1/2 years cruising the South Pacific, and regularly had rich people hire me as part of a crew to bring their yachts back from Mexico (due to prevailing currents, everyone wants to sail to Mexico, but no one wants to do the "Baja Bash" bringing them back). Currently I run a university sailing program and try turn a bunch of landlubber students into sailors in eight weeks.

This pic is fun. I am regularly first mate on this boat for fun stuff. She is a heavy cruising sailboat, but we entered her in the Newport to Ensenada race one year on a lark. It is a handicapped race, so boats of all types compete, usually around 400 boats. We had no expectations, but that year was so stormy it was a shoo-in for all the heavy cruisers and we won and got a big ol' trophy! We even beat Dennis Connor the Amercia's Cup champion! This is us coming up on the finish line.

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Beautiful boat.

The whole scene is so calming.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

The temperature is 77 and mostly cloudy.

Have a great day!

 

[MaryJanet]

Poor Vanille. My Diana only ever lays eggs with no shell or a paper thin shell.
I just hope her egg laying machine closes down before that kills her.
Meanwhile she is a perky friendly little soul.

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I wonder if your vet might perform a hysterectomy on her.

 

[RoyalChick]

I wonder if your vet might perform a hysterectomy on her.

I think we discussed that before. Or maybe that was the implant.
I don’t think she would do it (remember she isn’t an avian vet) and I am not sure I would want the risk of anesthesia on a still healthy chicken.
I dunno what I think really, but I am confident the vet would say she couldn’t do it.

 

[MaryJanet]

I think we discussed that before. Or maybe that was the implant.
I don’t think she would do it (remember she isn’t an avian vet) and I am not sure I would want the risk of anesthesia on a still healthy chicken.
I dunno what I think really, but I am confident the vet would say she couldn’t do it.

We did too!

I guess it's still an option in the event she worsens, even if you have to go further afield to someone who's done that type of surgery before.

 

[BDutch]

I wonder if your vet might perform a hysterectomy on her.

Do chickens have a uterus?
Or do you mean surgery to take out the overary.

I had a chicken that layed soft shell eggs too last year. After about 6 months she got into trouble because of this. And then she died quit suddenly. I don’t have more experience, and can’t advice properly .

 

[MaryJanet]

Do chickens have a uterus?
Or do you mean surgery to take out the overary.

I'm not sure what i mean in veterinary terms but I took a hen suffering similar health issues to see an avian specialist and he suggested a hysterectomy. He may well have been using language I could follow instead of precise technical terms.

 

[MaryJanet]

Come to think of it, he would've been referring to her ovaries.